Grade Inflation

[Q]Jerseygirl Wrote:

JTW-
We didn't use a translation either. The Heaney version was merely suggested reading. I hope you know how lucky you were not to have Farrell in what would literally turn out to be his last years of teaching. He tended to nod off more and more frequently between his flashes of wit and brilliance.[/q]

That's a pity. He was a little scatterbrained even back in 1990, but the "cocktail party" tidbits he threw out added to the fun of the class. I guess I'd say I was lucky to have him earlier in his career.

I have a friend who in high school used to make stick-figure comic books (he's a playwright now) and I made a few mock-ups for a version of Beowulf in that style. I think Prof. Farrell (who was to appear as a narrator and commentator) was the only character besides Grendel and his mother who got a body.

The Heaney translation comes in one of those editions with the original on the facing page Loeb Classical Library style, right? (I still haven't gotten around to getting a copy.) What I could really have used for that course was a workbook-style edition of the text, triple-spaced to allow room to add a scansion and gloss. I spent a lot of time copying Old English poetry out into notebooks to produce such a thing myself, but now one can find an electronic copy online and print it out triple-spaced after a few global-replaces on the HTML in a text editor.

[Q]Jerseygirl Wrote:

JMH-
Well...plagiarism is a hard one, because compelling themes (love, loss, struggle, etc.) are pretty universal as it is. Most less than mediocre stories were just thinly veiled autobiographical accounts anyway. And as one becomes a better writer, one becomes better at applying a thicker veil to one's autobiographical accounts. The requests from one's friends to be story characters also increases.[/q]

I know from even a few attempts at creative writing that accidental plagiarism is also a danger. You read a turn of phrase that catches your fancy, it rattles around in the back of your brain, and seems apt for a bit of narrative you're writing, and by that point you've forgotten how it got in your head in the first place. It's usually sufficiently modified to be merely derivative, though.

1st grade inflation, now hahvahd is doctoring newspaper pictures and trying to alter the past

[www.cnn.com]

Why not? They've had mysterious fires in the records department in response to geneder bias lawsuits. This is nothing in comparison

[seattletimes.nwsource.com]

One high school — 44 valedictorians

more anecdotal evidence about the grade inflation phenomenon, this time from a part-time instructor and a parent...

[www.washingtonpost.com]

Grade inflation, let's talk about real estate inflation. The average apartment in nyc now is $1 million dollar. Maybe the two are tied together somehow and we have Alan Greenspan to thank because of the easy money.

[Q]likeshockey Wrote:
Grade inflation, let's talk about real estate inflation. The average apartment in nyc now is $1 million dollar. Maybe the two are tied together somehow and we have Alan Greenspan to thank because of the easy money.[/q]

That's only if you insist on luxuries like two rooms or closet space for more than one person. You can still get a studio for about $300,000 and a small one bedroom for half a million. Really, who needs four burners on a stove when two will do? It's just taking up space in your living room.

Also, don't forget to thank the Asian central bankers for buying US Treasuries. And Greenspan should have raised rates in 1998.

[Q]ugarte Wrote:


Another interesting conclusion: students with higher SAT scores were less sensitive to the news about easy classes. Confidence, academic rigor or pinheads?[/q]

If you can run a mile in 5 minutes you don't worry so much about the difference between phys ed. classes that require a mile in 6 minutes versus 7 minutes. High SATs mean higher cognitive ability means the freedom to take what you want rather than worrying about easier courses.

The writers noted something to the effect that Cornell showed great naivete when it came to human nature. That's correct to the extent that not believing in human nature in the first place is being naive about it.

Anyone know what the honors distribution is at Cornell? My daughter just graduated from Duke where it's top 5% summa, next 10% magna, then next 10% cum laude. Far cry from Hahvahd's 91%.

When I graduated in '94, the engineering college's policy was that a GPA >= 3.25 was "with distinction," and everyone else was "with diploma." There was no strict percentage on it. Of course, given that most classes were curved to a B- or so, you could probably estimate that the percentage of "with distinction" grads would be in the 15-20% range.

I don't think that applied to other colleges at the time (didn't the A&S college have those honors thesis thingys?) and may not apply to engineering anymore.

most (if not all) majors in the arts college doesn't have a fixed latin honors distribution. you would need to write a thesis to get latin honors. if no one writes one, theoretically no one graduates with latin honors...

[Q]littleredfan Wrote:

most (if not all) majors in the arts college doesn't have a fixed latin honors distribution. you would need to write a thesis to get latin honors. if no one writes one, theoretically no one graduates with latin honors...[/q]

When I graduated Astronomy must have done honors based on grades, since no one mentioned the idea of writing a thesis and I still got them. Of course that year 100% of the Astronomy graduating class was summa cum laude.

[Q]Robb Wrote:

When I graduated in '94, the engineering college's policy was that a GPA >= 3.25 was "with distinction," and everyone else was "with diploma." There was no strict percentage on it. Of course, given that most classes were curved to a B- or so, you could probably estimate that the percentage of "with distinction" grads would be in the 15-20% range. [/q]

When I graduated, "With distinction" in the Engineering College was > 3.5. I know for sure because I just made the cut and they had to mail my diploma to me instead of giving it to me at the post-graduation reception. Word had it they curved to a C+/B- during the year and slightly higher during co-op summer to offset the fact that the co-op's were the top half of the class (thouigh one prof refused to do that). I never took stats, so I don't know the percentages, but I'd guess less than 10% were "With distinction."

You couldn't tell the pct above the "with distinction" line from the mean alone, anyway; you also need the measure of dispersion about the mean (i.e., standard deviation).

You could tell if the grading was to a strict normal curve, but that's such an artificial construct that I doubt any department, even an Engineering department, would be misguided enough to conflate it with reality.

I believe chemistry actually has 2 systems. There is one that is grade based, and then you can write a thesis for honors.

Answering my own question:

[ezra.cornell.edu] (question #3)

Also:

[www.cals.cornell.edu]

[ezra.cornell.edu]

[ezra.cornell.edu]

So similar to Duke in percentages, but not methodology, Cornell being more prone to the effects of grade inflation on honors inflation.

[Q]Jacob '06 Wrote:

I believe chemistry actually has 2 systems. There is one that is grade based, and then you can write a thesis for honors. [/q]

The math department is like this. I got magna cum laude from Arts because of GPA, but math gives "honors" for taking the honors seminar and (I believe) "high honors" for writing a thesis, the latter of which I was too lazy to do.

Not sure what "with distinction" means, but evidently I got that in "all subjects" so it's probably some college-wide thing.

(Not tooting my own horn or anything, just providing my limited perspective. There's a lot of shit on my diploma, partly because I spent too much time working in college, and partly because it's basically toilet paper this long out of school...)

Cheers,
Kyle

Oops - you're right, Jeff. It was 3.5 in 1994, too. We didn't get off that easily...

Thanks, Robb. Nice to know standards haven't dropped.

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